Earlier quoted context omitted.
> not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here You don't see the relevance of Artemis III launching in mid-2027 [1] or 2028 versus, say, after November 2028? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/
Does anyone vote for a president based on their ability to land on the moon?
NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#112Artemis from the beginning was just politics. And it wasn't driven by how to best do things, or any kind of coherent strategy. Its basically was a compromise, that had one of its pillars, that SLS and Orion need to continue to be used. Those two project have spend decades getting untold amounts of money. And even after all that money, their development isn't finished and they would need more money.
Then with the very, very little money left over, NASA tried to precure a moon lander. It was basically no money at all.
SpaceX won this competition, because SpaceX was willing to do things for an absurdly cheap price. Mostly because they are already investming themselves into the project. And their own investment was significantly larger then what NASA paid them.
Only after BlueOrigin lost, did they start a massive lobby campaign to figure out how to get more money out of congress so they could fund another lander.
But both landers, SpaceX and BlueOrigin, do not receive enough money to cover their cost. Not even close. So basically the US is relaying on massive companies in SpaceX case, and simply the private money of Bezos in BlueOrigins case to sponsor a moon program for them. Because all NASA money is going into legacy contracts that have very bad return on invesmtent.
The political move to now blame SpaceX for being late is just an excuse so that the overall project doesn't have to be reevaluated. The reality is, SpaceX is likely not the only reason for a delay. The suits are unlikley to be ready anyway. And even if Artemis III goes off, the SLS Block 2 is behind as well and will cost many additional billions.
And threating SpaceX with paying some legacy company to do a cost-plus lander isn't going to do anything, its just a fantasy thread, or at best the deamnd by some in congress to push even more money into legacy companies. Its not going to fix Artemis III or anything. Its funny how delays in cost-plus contract always lead to simply more money and more political support. Almost as if there was some other motives behind the decition when delays are unacceptable and when they are.
The reality of all of this is that NASA is completely mismanaged and fundamentally set up incorrectly. And just making big political waves on blaming whoever is politically out of favor will never actually work. The only reason SpaceX and the New Space economy exist is because clever teams inside of NASA and in Obamas team managed to sneak a few good programs, Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew past congress. Without those people, the US would already be far behind in terms of space.
The question the US (Congress/NASA) should be asking is not 'how can we get Artemis III' but rather 'what kind of Space program do we want over the next 30 years'. The US has an incredible space industry, and more private investment then everybody combinaed. There is no question that the US and NASA could be far, far beyond everbody else, and achieve amazing thigns, but Congress and NASA fundamentally misguided approch is holding it back.
So please, stop talking about Artemis III and start asking some more fundmanetal questions.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Boeing or the military industrial complex would handle these things with precision and delivered ahead of time that's fantasy. I've never heard of either entity delivering on time or on budget let alone ahead of time.
>that's fantasy. I've never heard of either entity delivering on time or on budget let alone ahead of time. We went from not having a manned space program to landing men on the moon in 8 years. This country used to be able to do things.
I suspect that is a truism the current administration is attempting to leverage. Unfortunately / inconveniently for them, instead of focusing on actual existential threats (climate change), they've tried to rally people behind a pretend existential threat (immigration). The people smell the rat and it seems to be back-firing.
Why they don't do the obvious thing and co-opt the green energy initiative, get into a space-race equivalent with China on solar panels and wind turbines, is a mystery to me.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#114I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you name a rocket program that was delivered ahead of schedule? I'm not aware of one that exists.
The first moon landing? Kennedy wanted it done before the end of the decade and they landed in 1969. I guess you could argue that it was on schedule rather than ahead.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#116I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?
That is assuming Starship succeeds. Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#117Artemis is a joke. You can tell this is politically motivated by their stance on SLS. If they were serious they would give Spacex the SLS contract for being years and years behind schedule.
Is starship on schedule?
Starship is trying to do the hardest thing in the history of space flight. And of course its not on schedule, its schedule was always insane.
The way of approching things as 'is X on schedule' is a fundamentally false way of approching the problem. The question is who makes the schedules and why. Who decides the budget and why. Who planes for the architecture and why.
Just thrwing around and accusing different groups about who is 'delayed' is kind of counter-productive.
The fact is, the schedule is something Trump made up to sound cool in his first term, and has since been revised for multible reasons. And the demand for a lander was equally rushed. So the schedule is mostly just whatever politics at the moment wants to project.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you name a rocket program that was delivered ahead of schedule? I'm not aware of one that exists.
The first moon landing? Kennedy wanted it done before the end of the decade and they landed in 1969. I guess you could argue that it was on schedule rather than ahead.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is assuming Starship succeeds. Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late.
Wasn't Elon kind of treated like a child to be distracted and kept at arms length at Spacex? He is apparently really really good at fundraising, marketing and publicity (well he used to be anyways). But the stories that have come out of Tesla, and Paypal and SpaceX seem to me like the people actually running the show have tried to distract him as much as possible, and any of his actual decisions have been awful. I re…
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#120[flagged]
The ketamine addiction rumors are unproven, and Musk denies them. He says he takes it as prescribed against occasional depression.
Knowing some folks who are working with their psychiatrists on their mental health and using ketamine under supervision: it seems ketamine is starting to prove effective for depressive issues.
The challenge is it's extremely potent and the dose is extremely patient-dependent. Miss a dose, mis-dose, or fail to realize you don't have the calibration right yet, and the risk for side-effects is high. Depression itself can also mask other conditions (like, counter-intuitively, mania; when you're too depressed to be manic you don't show the mania symptoms) that only surface for potential treatment when the depression is treated.
Most importantly: Musk can afford the kind of calibre of psychiatrist (and the time for observation) necessary for the therapy to be maximally effective. So if he's working with someone and serious about being treated, I wouldn't doubt ketamine therapy would be on the table.
(All of that having been said: mixing marijuana and ketamine is risky as hell; if Musk smoking on Rogan wasn't a one-off, he's doing his psychiatrist no favors introducing a second drug to his system that interacts with the same neural pathways and can create overshoot and bounce-back effects).